Peaches
by Faith360
Summary: Bruce Banner/Betty Ross. "I really want to kiss you." "After I finish my ice cream." Bruce's life with Dr. Elizabeth Ross, from their meeting to the accident that changed everything, told in alternating viewpoints with his life post-Avengers. Sometimes fluffy, sometimes angsty, sometimes stupidly fun.
1. Prologue

**I hate myself for relapsing, but I love Bruce too much, and I love Mark Ruffalo's Bruce too much. **

**This story is told in alternating storylines: it's Bruce Banner/Betty Ross, with some interludes occurring post-Avengers.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters used here, nor do I own the concepts of the Marvel cinematic universe, but I do own this particular arrangement of words.**

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><p>Bruce's life changed drastically when he joined the Avengers – he had been successfully hiding for three years before Natasha Romanoff showed up in Calcutta (with several squadrons of backup, even though the <em>other guy<em> hadn't made an appearance in some time). He still isn't on the government's good side, and he still needs to be cautious, but he has a little room to relax, thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D. He still moves around fairly often, uses false names, and rents rooms that he would have scoffed at in grad school (a time in his life when he could live off a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter), but he doesn't have to worry as much.

The main thing that cuts down on his anxiety is Natasha. Between their eventful meeting in Calcutta and the time he – _the Hulk_ – almost killed her on the helicarrier, Bruce and Natasha have…well, become friends (sort of. Natasha doesn't exactly have _friends_). She watches his life so closely that even mild-mannered Bruce Banner is uncomfortable. But since he doesn't even _have_ a personal life for her to spy on, he doesn't object to her keeping tabs on him.

Once a month, Natasha buys a top shelf bottle of gin and he orders takeout. He's happy to have the company, even if their conversations are about work or him (Tasha knows everything. Her experience, cool practicality, and the gin are better than therapy).

Sometimes, Clint will check up on him, but Clint is the kind of person who has to keep busy, so Bruce is often a layover between jobs. Bruce accompanies Clint to batting cages and sports bars, and lets the archer sleep off his hangover on the duct taped couch in his crappy apartment.

Bruce doesn't spend much time with Steve at first, but they have a mutual respect for each other. After Bruce gets over the captain's kind of irritating perfectionism, and Steve realizes that the scientist slash monster is not the sum of his parts, the two men form a solid friendship. Bruce likes the peace and normalcy of their nights spent watching sports and drinking cheap beer, and afternoons spent tossing a football or wandering museums, getting Cap up to speed on the modern world.

Thor, of course, has gone back to Asgard permanently. Bruce kind of misses him. It's funny to watch the nigh-invulnerable god try to navigate the world below (also, Thor's inexperience makes him a perfect target for Clint and Tony, giving Bruce a break from being the object of their childish antics). Thor is honest, and one of the few people who doesn't seem to be bothered by _the other guy_. Bruce even helps Clint and Tony brainstorm for the next time Thor makes his appearance.

Bruce visits Tony frequently, often for days at a time, and these visits serve several purposes. Both of them need the company – to feed Tony's damaged ego and fill the holes in Bruce's mostly solitary life – and despite Tony's near constant chatter, Bruce enjoys the days they spend tinkering and experimenting, even if he's just trying to help Tony design a hologram for Jarvis that looks like a maxim model (Pepper is extremely disappointed in Bruce for helping). These visits are never boring and often stressful, but Bruce is finding it easier to control himself in everyday situations the more time he spends around Tony.

He really does _like_ Tony, and they really are friends, but there is no way Bruce would ever tell him that these visits double as lessons in anger management.

Pepper is a welcome distraction from Tony – Bruce fiends Pepper is easy to talk to, a balance between Tony and Natasha, his two closest friends, on nearly opposite ends of the spectrum. Pepper pours them both a glass of wine and they complain about Tony, sometimes while watching his latest stunt on the news.

Bruce likes the avengers because he feels welcome. He's still hiding, but he likes not having to hide from everyone.

Tony is complaining (_whining_, really) about Pepper. Bruce isn't listening because he's going through a desk piled with Tony's discarded or half-finished ideas (and _seriously_ there is nothing _Pepper_ have _possibly_ done that is anywhere _near_ what Tony has put her through).

Bruce's attention is jerked away from the exhausting work of sorting through Tony's creative mind by a problem from Tony's personal life, interrupting with a lavish story that practically screams "look at me!" Tony is almost literally begging for Bruce's attention.

Tony is the woman in this relationship.

Bruce looks at him over the pair of wire rimmed glasses that are sliding down his nose. "She says you're not romantic enough?"

Tony is fiddling with some small metal object, but Bruce isn't sure what it is, due to the placement of his glasses. "You haven't been listening." Definitely not a question. "Last week – "

"I was listening." Bruce waves his hand to make him shut up before he starts again. "Just do something less showy; I dunno." He shrugs and prepares to dive back into the pile.

"Oh, so do _you_ have any ideas, green man?"

It's times like these – when he's distracted, from work or exhaustion – that the stupidest, most thoughtless things come out of Bruce's mouth.

"Better than anything you can come up with."

Tony stops fiddling and arches an eyebrow in surprise. He was not expecting his pestering to come to anything. "I'm sorry, what was that?" He cups his hand to his ear, egging him on, because certainly _this_ is better than any direction he could have steered the conversation.

Finally fed up, Bruce straightens and pushes his glasses up. "It's not hard to be romantic." He leans over the desk, raising his voice. "It's not rocket science, Tony!"

Tony stands up and claps loudly, throwing his arms out wide. "Bring it on, then!"

Bruce rolls his eyes. "No."

Tony tilts his head to the side and fakes a pout. "Big bad green rage monster afraid to lose a bet?"

And that was how Bruce Banner ended up taking Pepper Potts on a date with Tony Stark's credit card.


	2. One

**Obviously, this is not Marvel canon (comics or movies) but I don't know the comic storyline that well, and what I do know is boring: Bruce and Betty meet on the project that turns him into the Hulk, and that doesn't take long. This is much more fun.**

**Still don't own the Avengers.  
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><p>Bruce Banner met Elizabeth Ross in grad school. They were both about to graduate (finally), both had an unhealthy fascination with radiation, and both were up for the same research opportunity.<p>

The first time they met, he didn't suspect any of those things to be true of her. As a whole, doctoral students are a diverse bunch, but people who choose to spend hours on end in a stuffy, artificially-lit lab conducting looping, mostly theoretical research tend to have similar personality types. Elizabeth Ross was not your conventional research student.

Bruce has long forgotten how he ended up at the mixer, but he certainly remembers every moment leading up to it: being strangled by a striped tie, sweating like a dog in that ugly suit (it was even ugly _then_), constantly pushing his glasses back up his nose, wondering whose hare-brained idea it was to have a _social mixer_ for _doctoral students_. What person who chooses to spend their life dedicated to research wants to go to a damn _social mixer_?

The food is placed on a series of tall, round tables, staggered apart like tiny hors d'oeuvre islands. They are swarming with people in no semblance of a line. At least half of them are lingering alone, waiting for someone to ambush with unwanted conversation. Bruce picks the least crowded table, dives in headfirst, and emerges with a small plate full of random items. Bruce hates enclosed spaces, even throngs of people crowding mini buffet tables.

He takes a bite of something that looks like meat but doesn't taste like it, and promptly heads toward the drinks. This is what he gets for picking the table with the most food on it. In a sleep-deprived, junk-food addicted group like this, anything that's left mostly intact is left that way for a reason.

On his way out of the writhing mass around the drink table, Bruce manages to spill lemonade on his jacket. He finds a spot standing next to the chairs on the wall, which are filled with ladies' purses and men's jackets and other personal belongings, leaving no room for anyone to sit (just as well, he knows those chairs from a classroom during his third year – the _only_ thing they're able to reliably hold is purses).

He throws his jacket over his arm and wrenches his tie off, stuffing it in the pocket of his pants (although none of this is done gracefully, since his hands are full of half-empty lemonade and not-meat-thing).

There's some kind of mini pastry that isn't so bad, and he's in the middle of stuffing a third in his mouth when he hears a woman's voice speaking very closely.

"Uh….Hi?"

He stares, mouth full of pastry (at least he's kept his mouth closed) and a young woman stares back, just as awkwardly. He wonders irritably what she wants.

She is dressed in gray pants and a plain black shirt with long sleeves, her dark brown hair twisted up like she's just gotten out of bed, a strong contrast to her professional attire. Her glasses are also falling down her nose. She shifts her weight between her feet but falters, and he notices she's wearing a pair of shiny black heels. They aren't that tall but they look new. He thinks she might tumble over at any second. They stare at each other for what is probably a solid two minutes before she speaks, pointing weakly at the chair behind him. "I'm…I'm sorry I just….you're kind of standing in front of my stuff."

He swallows the pastry and jumps out of the way, mumbling apologies as he dusts flakes off his shirt front and she takes a few unsteady steps toward the chair. She goes with her shoulders hunched forward, tilting her head downward.

He knows he's being off-putting, but he recognizes the motions of someone who has stood around for the obligatory twenty minutes avoiding social contact. He continues staring, watching her fumbling to collect her umbrella and coat. She turns to look at him, and before he can make up some explanation as to why he was staring at her, she offers him a smile. It's a small one, but her smile is like…peaches and cream. He can't seem to talk.

"I'd have ditched the tie, too. I hate going to these things. It's so uncomfortable."

He looks quickly at his tie, hanging out of the pocket of his pants, and since his brain isn't functioning, he blurts out (surprisingly confidently), "It's not uncomfortable, it's just ugly."

He looks like a complete dumbass (also, that was a complete lie, he hates wearing ties no matter how stylish they are).

She laughs, and he wonders if she's crazy. When she laughs she shakes her head in the slightest, and her true-blue eyes are laughing with her, but most importantly, those eyes are staring straight at him, and he admits to himself that she is kind of adorable. With that sugary smile and messy hair and unsteady gait, she is trapped in the bleak plainness of that black shirt and gray pants. He imagines she wears lots and lots of knit sweaters (she does, actually).

He has a bad habit of rubbing the back of his neck when he's anxious. He's doing it again. "I, ah, I like your heels. You're probably going to run headfirst into a wall, but they're pretty."

She laughs and looks down at them, a small frown flitting across her mouth for a moment (_really_ her mouth is like fresh peaches and he needs to stop staring at it). "I know. I already have a blister." She pops her right foot upward, craning her head over her shoulder to examine the affected ankle and wobbling as she puts it back to the floor.

She looks up at him and smiles again, and he knows he's grinning stupidly back at her. This time, it's her who can't seem to put words together.

He holds his hand out to her. "I'm Bruce Banner."

"Elizabeth Ross." She shakes his hand like it's made of glass.

They are grinning at each other over their joined hands.

"Just Elizabeth?"

"Betty. But I when I started grad school, I switched to Elizabeth."

He wrinkles his nose and her eyebrows come together.

"I don't really care, either way."

He takes a giant step towards the trash can in the corner, drops his mostly uneaten plate and half-full lemonade in, and turns toward her, "The food here sucks." He pauses, and for the first time all night he feels like himself: awkward, hesitant, the one who normally stands against the wall.

He's rubbing the back of his neck again. Mid sentence he stops himself. "Do you…want to grab a bite? We could…talk about your name some more."

She's smiling like _that_, again, and the back of his neck is growing hotter with anxiety and hope. "I was leaving, anyway." She says this flippantly, too good and too interesting (and too _cute_ and too _funny_) to be stuck in this boiling room that smells like day old grad student.

Bruce has long forgotten how he ended up at the mixer, but he'd like to thank whatever God or colleague or force of nature brought him there.


	3. Two

They ditch the mixer and Bruce takes Betty Ross out for ice cream. She looks like she's in love as she spoons mint chocolate into her mouth, sighing. Bruce is entranced. There is a baser part of him that is watching her lips, but it's easily ignored: he is almost entirely focused on the pure happiness that lights her face.

It's a cheap little place, and he really should even be spending this much, but he's in college, it's all about to be over, and _damn it_ he's going to buy a pretty girl some ice cream. She meets his eyes, and he's grinning like the Cheshire cat again. She giggles, and his heart pounds.

His thoughts wander to her lips again, (he's only just met her, but maybe he'll kiss her goodnight) and he stuffs a scoop of peach ice cream into his mouth to shut his fantasies away again.

It doesn't work. He takes several more.

She notices and arches an eyebrow. "What's wrong, Bruce?"

He should win an award for so much dumbassery in one night.

"You remind me of peaches."

Her mouth hangs open in just the slightest. She looks down at his bowl of peach ice cream, then back to his face, and then directly, unflinchingly, meets his eyes. Without a trace of a blush on her face or a hint of humor in her voice she says, "Your hair reminds me of chocolate."

He looks at her bowl of ice cream: one half, mint chocolate, desecrated, and the other, plain chocolate, picked around.

"_Why_?" He's a little too loud.

She purses her lips and gives a small shrug. "You're sweet and bitter and I like you." She smiles at his continued dumbfounded expression. "Do you think I'm sweet and fuzzy?"

"Bright." He adds, and, as he stuffs more ice cream into his mouth, before he can stop himself, he mutters, "And I really want to kiss you."

She takes a large bite of chocolate. "After I've finished my ice cream."


	4. Three

Liz, Lizzy, Liza, Bet, Beth….

Betty _is_ nice, and it's who she is, but Bruce wants to give her a name of his own, something he can call her that fits her brilliance. He thinks about it all night.

He walks her to her apartment, and they plan another date, and when she kisses him, he blurts out, "Goodnight, Ellie,"

"Goodnight, Bruce." She doesn't bat an eye, gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, and doesn't look back.

He has never been happier in his short, sad, lonely life. Ellie Ross is beautiful and smart and funny and _wonderful_.

He's walking away from her apartment at midnight in September, and he tells himself it's okay to fall in love with her, because it's going to happen whether he likes it or not.

(He likes it.)

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><p><strong>In case you're wondering why I changed her name, in short:<strong>

**I hated it (apologies to everyone who is named or who likes the name Betty).**


	5. Interlude: The Bet

Bruce's date with Pepper goes swimmingly. They talk and laugh and complain about Tony (a tradition), and Bruce tells her of the royal screw-up that led to this bet. She rolls her eyes. "A monkey could be more romantic than Tony, sometimes."

She uses these exact words when she informs him that he's lost his bet, but Tony is not a humble loser (he's not a humble _anything_).

**XXXXXXX**

This is one of the few times they are all together. It's both strange and natural. Tony is using this opportunity to tell everyone else how unfair the bet was, and Pepper is defending Bruce, who is rubbing his temple with one hand. Steve is beside him, laughing, and Clint is practically _howling_. Natasha keeps shooting Bruce looks throughout the story, pausing sometimes to ask Pepper nosy questions.

"_I _could do better." Clint takes a swig of his beer. Tony, naturally, doesn't think so.

"We'll be the judge of that." Pepper cuts him off and winks at Natasha, who offers her a sly half-smile.

Tony protests, pointing his glass at Natasha. "Uh-uh. No fair. Her heart is made of ice. I call foul."

"I've been on a lot of dates, Tony." Natasha leans back into her chair.

"Assassinated a lot of dates, you mean."

"Only the pretty ones." Per usual, no one responds, because there is no way to tell if she's joking.

"I think it's a good idea." Pepper elbows him, ending the brief silence. "Two different opinions would make it more even."

"I'm getting in on this." Clint stands and comes over to them from the bar, smirking. "I have to know."

Tony swivels immediately to look at Steve, who looks like a deer in headlights, hands coming up, "Oh, no-"

"Don't leave us hanging, Captain spandex." Tony waves his drink at him.

"I won't bite," Natasha says seriously.

"I'll try to be nice." Pepper teases.

Steve looks around, sees he's outvoted, and sighs, his free hand coming down on his leg with a _slap_, "You've got me. What're the stakes?"

They spend their dinner conversation arguing over the terms of their bet, haggling over money and bragging rights. Bruce is getting a headache. Natasha is watching him critically. He rubs the back of his neck, and catches Pepper's eye. She winks at him, coaxing out a smile.

With Clint and Steve in on the mix, and Natasha judging, he's going to have to do better than the simplicity of that faux-date with Pepper last week. Ugh. It's been a _long_ _time_ since he's been on a date.

He tries to focus on the people around him, and not the ones behind him (this is not the first time he's wished to go back, but it's the first time he's okay with where he is).


	6. Four

It turns out Bruce and Ellie have several classes together. Class becomes a well-practiced routine – they are a team, and an efficient one, so much so that their professors generally leave them to do as they wish (Ellie's passive-aggressive when it comes to school, and that doesn't hurt).

He's always obnoxiously early to his classes, laden with paper and books. She comes sauntering in five minutes til with two cups of coffee in her hands, on oversized knit sweater hanging from her shoulders, and a warm smile just for him. She falls into the chair beside him, sets his coffee in front of him, and kisses him soundly on the cheek.

"Good morning, Bruce."

She is as calm and pleasant as a spring day.

He loves her (he hasn't told her, yet).

**XXXXXXX**

He is a coward. He blurts out all kinds of things he doesn't mean to (your hair is pretty, I think _you're_ pretty) but he can't tell her he loves her. He panics and his mouth won't work, and he says some other squishy thing instead (I missed you, is all, let's have ice cream). He loves this sweater-wearing, coffee-addicted, peaches and ice cream woman. He loves Elizabeth Ross. Ellie has become his entire world.

He _loves_ her (seven months pass, and he still hasn't said it).

(He hates himself).


	7. Five

Bruce doesn't remember how it happened, (why do so many of his stories start out like this?) but he knows it happened far too late (seven months had passed with Ellie). One minute, he's sitting with Ellie on his couch, talking about graduation, and the next he's saying, (loudly, and in a rush), "_I love you_,"

She pauses midway through reaching for her drink, sitting on the coffee table. She stares at the glass. He stares at her. The only thing he can hear is his heart. Is he imaging shooting pains in his left arm?

She sets her glass back down and leans back, slowly. She's staring at her lap. He is _freaking out_.

Without looking up, she says, unusually quietly, "_Why_?"

He scrunches his eyebrows together. "_What_? I tell you I love you and you ask me _why_?"

"_Yes_."

"What the hell kind of answer is that?" Bruce stands up, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration, fumbling with his words, "I..._really_? What the hell?"

She bounds up, hands balled into fists. "Why the hell did it take you so long?" Her eyes are red. She's trying to glare but she looks like she might cry.

"I don't-"

"Don't you dare do that! Don't you dare!" Ellie pushes him, and as he stumbles back, he yells,

"I _don't know_!"

"You're really stupid to be so damn brilliant, Bruce!" She grabs a pillow and swings it at his arm, still screaming. "Why did you do that?"

She goes to swing again, but he blocks and pushes her pillow arm down, his other hand reaching out and tightening around her free wrist so she can't hit him anymore. "I love you, okay?" He kisses her and she brings the pillow up again, but he pins both her arms to her sides. She is still blindingly angry, and he can feel it, but something inside him knows that she can't back away. She is almost incapable of it (he is, too).

"_Why_?" She repeats, as soon as he's stopped kissing her and loosened his grip on her arms, "Why did you do that to me? Do you understand how much that _hurt_?"

"I love you, Ellie." She drops the pillow. He moves his hands to her face. She is still and pliable. He can feel her shiver when he touches her. He holds her face and kisses her forehead. "I love you, Ellie." They stand still in the middle of the room, locked in long crushing hug.

"Bruce?"

He kisses her hair. "I love you."

"Stop."

"_No_."

He doesn't stop telling her after that first time. He keeps repeating it, because he does, and he will always.


	8. Six

It's finally May. Bruce and Ellie are scrambling and increasingly irritable. Finals are approaching. _Final_ finals. She still hasn't entirely recovered from their fight a week ago, and to avoid making things worse, he reminds her (and himself) that he loves her (because he can do that, now).

"This equation is entirely wrong. _How_ do you survive making stupid mistakes like this?"

He looks up at her and grins wickedly. "You."

Se rolls her eyes. He can see her blush. He's found his secret weapon.

He comes home from class early, and exhausted, so he takes a nap on the couch. He wakes up to the sound of a key turning in the doorknob – it's Ellie, clutching his spare key with white fingers, and when she sees him, sitting bleary-eyed on the couch, a dam breaks.

He has never seen her cry so hard (but it's finals, so he's not surprised). "Ellie," He mutters, rubbing his eyes as she seats herself shakily in the old chair opposite him. He frowns. "Why are you sitting over there? Please come sit here. What's happened?" She looks at her lap. There is a foil wrapped package that smells like brownies (looks like she's been stress-baking again).

"If you touch me, I'll cry."

"You're _already_ crying." He stands up.

"No, Bruce, don't –"

"Ellie –"

She leaves the brownies in the chair and leaps up, but he takes a giant step forward and catches her around the waist. She freezes, taking deliberate breaths. His left hand grips her waist and turns her toward him, and his right takes her hand, running his thumb across her skin. As advertised, she cries.

"What's wrong?"

"_Everything_. I think I failed my exam this morning, and Dr. Chapman hates my paper, I don't have a job, I saw a cockroach my apartment, my dad thinks I'm a failure, and my brownies are awful."

"That's stupid, Ellie," He steps over to the chair and unwraps the foil, popping a brownie into his mouth. "Your brownies are delicious."

She lets out a soft, abrupt laugh, but she's still straight as a board with stress and anxiety. He sits in the chair and she follows, perching on one of his knees while he balances the brownies on the other. "You need to move," He eats another brownie. "You need to stay here, so I can let you know when you're brownies suck and help you study." Pause. Chew.

She takes a brownie. "You have to get a new mattress."

She chews, and he runs his fingers through her hair. "I love you. I want you here."

"I love you, too," She says absently, folding the foil around her decidedly not awful brownies.

"I didn't know that," He doesn't want to reopen old arguments, but he just kind of _says it_.

"I didn't, either: why do you think I was so mad at you for waiting so long?"

"I'm sorry."

"Make it up to me."

"I love you."

She stands and turns toward the kitchen, but he takes her arm and turns her around, kissing the inside of her wrist. "I _love you_."

She nods and goes to put the brownies away.

She_ loves _him.


	9. Seven

Things haven't exactly been winding down, but they're more manageable. This is strange to Bruce, because finals are almost over, but there's still graduation to deal with, job searching, packing, and apartment hunting to do, and Ellie (she hasn't cried any more, but her stress-baking has reached an all-time high).

Tonight she switches from stress-baking to anxious-cooking, and he is sitting cross-legged on the nearly empty floor of her tiny apartment, folding and packing a massive pile of her winter clothes. He likes packing – it's simple and logical, and Ellie doesn't have the patience for it (it's too menial for her tastes).

She's making spaghetti and cleaning up from her baking in between; he looks up to the piles of Ellie's belongings around him, still not packed, and notices something he's never seen before. She's too busy cooking slash cleaning to notice him reaching into the jumbled box of personal items and pulling out an old photo album.

It's full to the brim – pictures of a dark haired little girl with her parents. _Little Ellie_. He's seen a few pictures like this before, but she doesn't like pictures or the hanging of them. He flips through, watching Ellie grow up. As Ellie becomes a teenager, her father, a stern military man, fades from the pictures. Her mother is a prominent figure. He begins to wonder why Ellie's never asked him to meet her parents – especially since she has implied she has an excellent relationship with her mother – but then he realizes that he hasn't asked her, either. He has his reasons, so she must have hers…but her family looks so _happy_ and _normal_ and he doesn't know why she hasn't told him more than she has.

Ellie is in her mid-teens when the pictures cease abruptly. Blank pages fall through his fingers.

He puts the photo album back and looks up at her, stirring her spaghetti. "Why haven't I met your parents?"

"Why haven't I met yours?" She doesn't seem bothered (any more than she already is).

He finds himself flushing, but not from embarrassment. He consciously tries not to sound angry with her (it isn't her fault). "You can't." (He fails).

She stops stirring and stares at him, eyebrows drawn. "Bruce," She says softly, watching as he starts angrily folding her sweaters. "Bruce."

The next thing he knows she's bending down in front of him, holding his hands. He hangs his head and puts his forehead on her hands. She leans down and kisses the top of his head, and they stay that way for a moment. "I'm sorry,"

"He killed her." Ellie holds him tighter. "He just kept hitting her."

Ellie lets out a low growl and her fingernails dig into his back. "I'm sorry that bastard ever touched you. He's not in your life anymore. It's over. I'm the only person allowed to touch you, now."

He sits up but he doesn't let go of her. She puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes. She looks so beautiful, and he is _hers_.

"Ellie," He begins, one hand grabbing the wrist that is perched on his shoulder. "Your dad never….hurt you, did he?"

"No," She answers immediately, but the mention of her father stirs up old wounds: fury, sorrow, loss, bitterness, and, still, love.

He watches her struggle with them, and puts his other hand on her knee. "Why haven't you introduced me to your parents?"

Her hand falls from his shoulder and slides down to rest on his chest, and he holds her hand there. She can't look at him, which is very non-Ellie-like. She is always direct and honest, unflinching.

"I'm still ashamed of how I acted, but…I still remember why I did. I'm not ready to forgive him yet."

"He's still your dad."

"He won't like you."

Bruce shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me."

"He'll _hate_ you."

"He's going to be at graduation, right? It's going to happen anyway."

"No!" She turns the tables, and she's the one gripping his hand – the hand on his chest is tangled in his shirt. "You are _mine_. _He cannot have you_."

Bruce can't help it. He's smiling.

Ellie growls again and uses her hand on his shirt to pull him toward her, practically assaulting him with her lips. "He ruins everything." She mutters between kisses. "He's callous." She bites his lip. "Bitter." He's sighing. "Cold." Her lips work their way up his jaw. "And he," She kisses the corner of his lips. "Has no empathy left in his heart." She returns to his lips, her hands running down his shirt front, and he is incapable of doing anything more than frantically attempt to keep up with her.

"My mother took it all with her when she died." She slows down, and it is _agony_ compared to her previous pace. "What she didn't take, he buried." She moves to his ear. "He did not bury me." 

He has been fighting off the memory of his father for years, and blocking angry hands in his nightmares: Brian Banner has replaced the little voice in the back of his head,

"_You are worthless_,"

"_You should have drowned him, Rebecca_."

With five words and a searing kiss, Ellie puts his father's ghost to rest for good.


End file.
